Right now my best friend and I are doing a booze-run bet. The terms of the bet are as follows:
- we each must run every day
- whoever does not run on a given day first, buys the other a bottle of Jack
There's no minimum requirement for the run but I think we're both giving it a "good faith effort," aka I'm putting in about 10 minutes a day (with the awareness that my DOMS will only get worse each day, I didn't think more than 10 minutes would be very advantageous).
Since she lives in DC and I live in Delaware, we are sending each other Snapchats every day as proof we have gone running.
What are good bets you've participated in, Hubski?
I am eight years in to a ten-year wager on the price of oil vs. Big Macs. The thesis is that, contrary to widespread perception, raw materials like petroleum are not becoming more and more scarce (and therefore expensive). It was inspired by Julian Simon's The Ultimate Resource 2 and his famous bet on the price of raw materials. I would have preferred to bet inflation-adjusted dollars against oil, but my friend had some reservations about the stability of the dollar, so I picked Big Macs as a (not very good) substitute. This seems to be working out in my favor, as the Economist has recorded an increase of 49% in burger price ($3.06 to $4.56) while the CPI (ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt) has only gone up 19% (196.8 to 233.546).
Whenever someone flips a coin, I call the edge. So far it hasn't landed on the edge, but one day it will, and I'll be the most powerful man in the world.
"Livin' on the edge," mmm? Or maybe you are going to turn into Two-Face/Dent. Didn't his coin land on the edge one time?His dependence on the coin became so great that when it once landed on edge in a floor crack, Two-Face was immobilized and unable to decide for himself.
Haha, what an interesting character. I gotta say I've yet to dip my feet into the ocean of comic books. Maybe I should start. oh god the potential expense of time...
I would say that comic books are one of the mythologies of our time. I would think of them similarly to Greek/Roman myths, in terms of scope and complexity. You can gain a surface understanding of the myths or you can delve deeper. I don't actually read comic books so much as Wikipedia, but I guess I do have a fair working knowledge of some aspects of comics. You can get really deep into it and obscure characters. Another easy way (in other words, not mentally challenging) way to get into comics is to watch the series. I'm a huge X-Men fan but most of my X-Men knowledge derives from watching what's been available on Netflix (and yes, sometimes the graphics are really awful but for the love of it you stick through) and reading on Wikipedia. Comic books themselves are a bit much of an investment and I don't know where to start. Although, there is a comic book store relatively near me, and people have told me I woudl like Swamp Thing...
I've never been so well described in my life.The character is a humanoid mass of vegetable matter who fights to protect his swamp home, the environment in general, and humanity from various supernatural or terrorist threats.
Election night, 2008. There were big parties at all the bars in town, and everyone was in a good mood. My buddy that I was with pointed out a woman, and said, "I bet you can't take her home." She wasn't attractive and looked to be about 20 years older than me. I laughed out loud and told him he was nuts, and that that would be like shooting fish in a barrel. So, he said, prove it. Next thing I know I'm hitting on this middle aged woman, and with all my charm I convinced her to accompany me back to my apartment, which was quite close. We got back, and I did make out with her. Then she stopped me. Obviously confused, she asked how old I was. 26, I replied. She seemed super uncomfortable, and told me that she was 44 and was very recently divorced. "This is weird. I think I'm going to leave," is the last thing I remember her saying to me. To me, that was kind of a win-win, because I did take her home, but I really didn't want to go through with it. Also, I'm sure it got her confidence back up (or she was just totally weirded out). All in all it was a strange night. It was surreal that a black man was just elected president, the bar was giving out free drinks, and the inner city was humming with a very strange feel, so I figured me taking home a woman who could be my mother was probably the least weird thing about that night.
At least you didn't have sex with her on a race car shaped bed belonging to her son. That didn't happen to me, but a friend. No bet involved. I wonder what prompted her to go back with you. Were the lights in the bar so low that age became impossible to gauge?
Hmmmm. What an interesting comment. Not that I would know anything about this, but I think sometimes it is very easy to get women at bars to go home with you, if the night, the alcohol, and the charm are right. I think a lot of it for a guy is a confidence thing. Also...she probably was assuaging her ego after that whole divorce thing. My then 19-year-old brother dated/hung out with a woman who was older than our mother. I think she broke up with him because she realized it wasn't ever going to go anywhere. Her name was Chevette. What a name.I wonder what prompted her to go back with you.
What a perfect name, given the situation. Oh, no doubt. I like thinking about people's motivations though. On the night of that particular election, I know that emotions were running high for a lot of people, so that could have played into it. The woman's ego could have been at play, or maybe b_b reminded her of someone, or maybe she was hypnotized or, or, or . . . Of course, this has led me to back out of potentially fun encounters at times. When I was about 20, an older woman, (a friend of my boss) came to my apartment while all of us roommates were having a party. She was pretty determined and hitting on all of us pretty hard. When we woke up the next day, she was gone. The roommate that had ended up with her told us that she was absolutely filthy in bed. I could tell that the other two roommates, like myself, briefly wondered what could have been and if they would have been so eager to share the details. <shrug>Not that I would know anything about this, but I think sometimes it is very easy to get women at bars to go home with you, if the night, the alcohol, and the charm are right. I think a lot of it for a guy is a confidence thing.
Haha. insomniasexx and I had a (half joking) bet about which one of us could get you to go home with us from the bar at the Hubski meetup in DC. She had her game face on that night, while I did not. Like I said, we were joking when we hatched the idea, but if it were serious, I don't think I would have stood a chance.Not that I would know anything about this, but I think sometimes it is very easy to get women at bars to go home with you, if the night, the alcohol, and the charm is right.
Okay, so this one takes a little bit of explaining. for the past two years I've gone to a music camp for a Double Bass Masterclass. At the end of the session, we have the El Perro Competition. It's a $20 buy in, and $5 to buy back in if you get knocked out. El Perro is a technical exercise that is included in the daily exercises at the camp. It involves a complicated chromatic/semichromatic pattern in the left hand with bowing variations in the right. For non-music people, that means it's complicated. There is one bowing variation in particular, the "Paganini" bowing variation, which we use for the competition as it is generally agreed upon to be the most difficult, involving a three-note bowing pattern over a 4-note left hand fingering pattern. For you non-music people, that means it's the hard kind of complicated. And so everyone who's interested buys in, and there are three judges who decided whether or not you have played the exercise accurately at the given tempo in the given key. It starts out seriously enough, but eventually distractions are added in for the competitor, and for the entertainment of the "potent potable" imbibing audience. the only rule to the distraction is that you are not allowed to physically touch the competitor, so it gets pretty hairy. Anyways, by the end of it, it's a bit of a circus, with someone doing slap bass accompaniment (á la country and western music) and someone doing stool-riding while someone is attempting to play this complicated exercise at the appropriate tempo, appropriate key with no errors. Best $40 I've ever lost. I think the winner ended up with like, $250
the chromatic/semichhromatic pattern follows a major scale. ABCC# | AC#BC# BCC#D | BDC#D C#DD#E | C#EDE DEFF# | DF#EF# EF#GG# | EG#F#G# F#GG#A | F#AG#A G#AA#B | G#BAB ABCC# | AC#BC# then back down the scale. as a bassist, it's a thumb position exercise ( you use thumb, first, second and third finger instead of fingers 12(3)4). hopefully that makes some sense.
A good bet is a sucker's bet. When I was fourteen and my mom was drunk, she observed that the month times the date equaled the year that day - April 22, 1988 - and that it would "never happen again in our lifetimes." I said "wanna bet?" She said "sure!" I said "how much?" She said "twenty bucks." My dad groaned. I said "January 1st, 2001." She glowered at me, paid me, and sulked for the rest of the night. Sophomore year my roommate smoked too much and I drank too much diet coke. I bet him that I could quit diet coke more easily than he could quit smoking. It took me 3 weeks to make a hundred bucks. Let's hear it for a strong Yen.
My wife and I consistently have bets over what the grocery bill is going to be. We bet in kisses.
some friends bought a bar. I liked the name. They didn't. At lunch one day we bet that one of the owners couldn't eat a triple cheeseburger (6" patties) in 2 minutes. He finished it. with time to spare. Ever since, I've had to declare with joy that "I love the name The Whiskey Bar" and I had to slam three red bulls.
I bet my sister, who is just starting high school, that I can learn the 4 most basic types of tie knots AND the Trinity knot before her. Now, she already knew how to do a Windsor and I already knew how to do a Four-in-hand, so it was more or less even. This should be fun